Plan for new telescope has international support

Nature : The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a US-led project, has received financial commitments from 68 institutions in 26 nations. The 8.36-meter LSST, which will be built on Cerro Pachón in Chile, is designed to completely map the southern sky every three nights and generate 13 terabytes of data nightly. Although the project’s organizers are still awaiting funding from the US to complete construction, they are more concerned about meeting the estimated $37 million yearly cost of operating the data centers. If construction funding is approved and further fundraising garners more support for data-center maintenance, the telescope is planned to begin operation in 2022.